Honolulu Civil Beat’s coverage of the Maui fires last year has been recognized by the Institute for Nonprofit News, which named the newsroom winner of its 2024 Community Champion Award in the large-division category.

“It’s an effort a judge described as the ‘definition of rising to community need — from asking hard questions that the community deserves to have answered to providing explainers and resources for the community to use and to generate support,'” INN said in announcing the award on Wednesday.

Reporting by Civil Beat has exposed serious flaws in emergency preparedness and response by the state and county, the county’s lack of transparency overall and the history of failures in ecological management that laid the foundation for the disaster.

The Institute for Nonprofit News is composed of more than 450 news organizations.

In May, Civil Beat was named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category for our reporting on the fires.

This coverage of the aftermath of the fires includes reporting on environmental threats, housing challenges, government accountability and more.

Read some of the stories that led to this recognition from INN below.